scholarly journals The Harmonization of Folk Songs in Kodály’s Workshop

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 265-279
Author(s):  
Pál Richter
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Folk Song Arrangements

When Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály began systematically collecting folk songs, they almost exclusively encountered monophony, which subsequently featured as their compositional inspiration. As a musical phenomenon, monophony differed sharply from the harmonically based, often overharmonized, polyphonic universe of Western music. However, they also encountered coordinated folk polyphony, in the context of instrumental folk harmonizations. Taking into account the instrumental folk music both Kodály and Bartók collected, this study compares the two main types of folk harmonizations with folk song harmonizations in the works of Kodály, whose related theoretical statements are also considered. This study offers an in-depth analysis of six fragments from Kodály’s major folk-song arrangements to highlight the features of Kodály’s folk song harmonizations.

From Pure Source Only – Collection of Hungarian Folk Songs Project

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (62) (SI) ◽  
pp. 277-286
Author(s):  
Zoltan SZALAY
Keyword(s):  
Folk Songs ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Song Repertoire ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Entire Collection ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Hungarian Population ◽  
Selection Of

The collection contains a selection of folk songs from the Hungarian population living in Romania. Of the four volumes planned, three have been published so far. The entire collection is expected to span 18 regions and 3 micro-regions, as well as a strip of hundreds of kilometers from Transylvania and other areas outside Transylvania. These include some more developed areas which abandoned their traditions in the first half of the last century, and some more traditional regions. The first three volumes comprise folk songs from 174 localities, collected by 126 collectors, including Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, László Lajtha, János Jagamas and Zoltán Kallós. The collections took place between 1899 and 2017. The melodies have been selected from the archives of Transylvanian and Hungarian institutions, as well as from audio materials accompanying various publications. In this selection I have tried to add as many songs as possible which belong to the old strata of folk songs. I have tried to include as many pentatonic melodies as possible because these strata predominantly feature this scale. Also, in the last century the everyday folk-song repertoire shifted toward a fixed-rhythm performance mode. An ancient form, with its speech-like mode of performance, is now in the process of being lost. Therefore, the number in the published volumes is smaller than that of the folk songs performed in a tight rhythm.

Ethnographic Concerts in the Service of Empire

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-254
Author(s):  
Adalyat Issiyeva
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Russian Composers ◽  
Folk Song Arrangements

This chapter discusses how the composers affiliated with the Music-Ethnographic Committee used several strategies to circumscribe the peoples of the empire under the umbrella of Russian culture. Most of the so-called Ethnographic Concerts organized in Moscow by this committee (1893–1911) featured Russian or Slavic music followed by arrangements of folk songs of Russia’s inorodtsy, helping to reinforce the idea of Russia as a multiethnic state. Detailed analysis of folk song arrangements representing Russia’s ethnic minorities suggests that Russia was determined to appropriate and recontextualize the cultures of its newly acquired southern and eastern subjects. By introducing into inorodtsy music some elements associated with Russianness—the Dorian mode, avoidance of the leading tone, modal harmony, and what was called the “Glinka variation”—Russian composers reduced both the cultural and musical distances between Russia and its “others.” The arrangements performed in the Ethnographic Concerts, however, completely transformed inorodtsy musical language and stripped it of its historical and traditional meanings.

Bartók as Man of Letters

Tempo ◽  
1972 ◽  
pp. 10-16
Author(s):  
Benjamin Suchoff
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly

Bartok's literary efforts range from books and monographs to shorter essays. According to recent findings, there were no less than 119 extant works. Some of them were written in collaboration with Zoltán Kodály or Sandor Reschofsky; others were originally drafted as lectures which were for the most part given on the radio or at educational institutions.Bartók's first essay apparently appeared in print in Budapest in 1904. It is interesting to note that except in 1907 and 1915, at least one of his writings was published each year of his life, in a considerable number of languages, and frequently in widely-known journals. His essays may be divided, according to their topics, into eight basic categories (although there is some overlapping): I. The Investigation of Musical Folklore; II, National Folk Music; III, Comparative Musical Folklore; IV, Book Reviews and Polemics; V, Musical Instruments; VI, The Relation Between Folk Music and Art Music; VII, The Life and Music of Béla Bartók; and VIII, Bartok On Music and Musicians.

scholarly journals Transylvanian Folk Music in Zoltán Kodály's Compositions

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
István Almási
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Chamber Orchestra ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Musical Play ◽  
Mixed Voices ◽  
Voice And Piano ◽  
Hungarian Folk Music

Zoltán Kodály became seriously interested in Transylvanian folk music when he had learnt about the results of Béla Bartók's collecting fieldworks in Székelyföld. The wealth of old-style tunes and classical ballads, and – above all – the recognition of the importance of pentatony inspired Kodály to take part personally in the exploration of Székely folk music. Székely musical folklore obviously intrigued him both as an ethnographer and as a composer. He collected nearly 600 tunes in 15 Székely localities in the Gyergyó Basin, the valley of the Kászon stream, and Bukovina. He arranged 66 of these melodies within such compositions as e.g. the Dances of Marosszék, the musical play The Spinning Room, Hungarian Folk Music (57 ballads and folk songs for voice and piano), Székely Lament for mixed voices, Bicinia Hungarica, Kádár Kata and Molnár Anna (both with chamber orchestra accompaniment), and Pentatonic Music. Apart from his own collection, he also used those of some of his contemporaries. The paper discusses the specificities of Kodály's techniques of arrangement. His inspiring advice for younger folklorists had an essential role in triggering the in-depth investigation of Central Transylvanian folk music.

scholarly journals From ethnomusicologist to composer. Sándor Veress and the Moldavian Collection

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-261
Author(s):  
Ioana Baalbaki
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
Hungarian Academy ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Carpathian Mountains ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Catholic Faith

AbstractAs a student of Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók, but also a close collaborator of László Lajtha at the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum in Budapest, and later of Béla Bartók at Folk Department of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Sándor Veress followed the path of his masters regarding the relation with folklore music. In 1930, he undertook an expedition in Moldavia, Romania, to collect music from the Csángó population, a small Hungarian speaking community, of catholic faith, living in the east of the Carpathian Mountains. In the seven villages he has visited, he collected, with the help of the phonograph, 138 folk songs on 57 wax cylinders, taking in the same time around 60 pictures and documenting the whole expedition in a journal. Following this journey, during the 30’s, Sándor Veress not only transcribed and analyzed the entire material, but also selected some of the melodies and used them as theme for his own choir arrangements and chamber music compositions.

Collection of Hungarian Folk Music Established by Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly. 10th Types of Folksongs

1998 ◽  
Vol 39 (2/4) ◽  
pp. 443
Author(s):  
Lujza Tari ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Katalin Paksa
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Hungarian Folk Music

János Jagamas’ Folk Song Arrangements

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-320
Author(s):  
Éva Péter
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Reliable Data ◽  
Mixed Choir ◽  
Folk Song Arrangements

"The aim of the following study is to present János Jagamas’ vocal folk song arrangements by analyzing the melodies and the compositional methods used within the works. During his scientific work at the Folklore Institute of Cluj-Napoca, the outstanding folk music researcher uncovered and recorded reliable data by collecting, recording, analyzing, and classifying not only Hungarian but also Romanian and Bulgarian melodies. He processed some of the melodies he gathered using a variety of compositional procedures. The works are recommended for children, youth, and amateur choirs, so it is important to get to make them known among music teachers and conductors. Keywords: folk song adaptations, homogeneous and mixed choir works, polyphonic and homophonic editing techniques."

Béla Bartók's Evolutionary Model of Folk Music

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-320
Author(s):  
JAMES BENNETT
Keyword(s):  
Natural Product ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Developmental Processes ◽  
Conceptual Shift ◽  
Classificatory System

AbstractIn his ethnomusicological writings and lectures, Béla Bartók describes folk music as ‘a natural product, just like the various forms of animal and vegetable life’ and elaborates this view, going on to describe a collection of developmental processes modelled explicitly on biological evolution. In this article, I characterize Bartók's evolutionary model by laying bare the taxonomies and genealogies inherent in his classificatory system. Then, through an analysis of the fifth of hisEight Improvisations on Hungarian Folk Songs(1920), I suggest the outlines of a method for interpreting and analysing Bartók's music engendered from this evolutionary model, a method that involves the elaboration of two ideas: (1) a conceptual shift from a relatively historically static major/minor tonality to a multivalent, ‘evolving’ tonality, and (2) the reconception of motives or themes as having no single original forms, but rather as being related genetically, as somehow evolving in their own right.

scholarly journals Ukrainian folk songs in music education of pupils

2017 ◽  
pp. 128-132
Author(s):  
T. B. Kablova ◽  
S. O. Pavlova
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
The People ◽  
Powerful Means ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Education Of Students

The article deals with the pedagogical potential of Ukrainian folk song in terms of music education of students. Folklore has always been and is one of the most powerful means of moral aesthetic education. The authors analyse the song of Ukrainian folklore and highlight the importance of folklore values: historical, philosophical, educational, moral, aesthetic, and creative ones. The main components of teaching potential of Ukrainian folk music is intonation feature, simplicity of melodies and rhythmic structure, expression and richness of melody, harmony and close relationship between poetic and musical texts, deep emotion, authenticity, profound statement thoughts, poetry, clean image, deep highly and true meaning, reflection the history of the people, their thoughts and feelings. Folk ensembels are the most accessible and authentic embodiment of the Ukrainian folk songs. Ukrainian folk music has a great pedagogical value and helps educate a highly moral individual, who would have aesthetic, philosophical and artistic aesthetic qualities; develops interest in folk music, artistic taste and imagination. On the other hand, there is a remarkable arttherapeutic component of Ukrainian folk song.

scholarly journals Folklorism and Classical Tradition in László Lajtha's Late String Quartets

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 323-344
Author(s):  
Viktória Ozsvárt
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
Technical Skill ◽  
Bela Bartok ◽  
Composition Analysis ◽  
Zoltan Kodaly ◽  
Composing Process ◽  
Music Collection ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract The gains from the folk music collection movement initiated by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály in the first decade of the twentieth century set a path for Hungarian music theory that continued to influence the approach to composition in later decades. Placing folklore material in composed, classical works is complicated by tonal and formal problems and by political overtones. For quotations or thematic material from folk music may introduce complex implications and associations. So the way a composer imbues folk music calls for more than mere technical skill – it embodies an artistic statement. This article analyzes two works by the Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist László Lajtha (1892–1963): his string quartets nos. 7 and 10 completed in the early 1950s. Through these two quartets I attempt to fathom the aesthetic, ideological and personal motives behind Lajtha's use of folk material in classical composition. Analysis of the composing process involved and the reception the two works received reveal the manifold scope that folk music brings as a source of inspiration.

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